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20170013_0026

© Sébastien CHASTANET/OMP/IRAP/CNRS Images

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20170013_0026

Différents éléments optiques du spectrographe de l’instrument SPIRou

The pupil slicer is installed between the reflecting mirror and the objective; they constitute various optical elements of the SPIRou (InfraRed SpectroPolarimeter) instrument's spectrograph. Inside this compact system, several small mirrors enable re-imaging inside the spectrograph of the light beams from three optical fibres. The slicer is the result of an innovative study undertaken in collaboration with Winlight Optics (Pertuis). SPIRou consists of a near-infrared spectropolarimeter combined with a high-precision velocimeter. Installed at the Cassegrain focus of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) at the end of 2017, SPIRou was designed to detect habitable Earth-twin exoplanets in the planetary systems of red dwarf stars in the vicinity of the Sun. It could also unravel the mysteries of the birth of stars and planets, by observing for the first time the magnetic fields of protostars aged just a few hundred thousand years.

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